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Thursday, December 8, 2011

Robert Lindsay vs Matt Moneymaker round 2

(DISCLAIMER THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY ROBERT LINDSAY DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THOSE OF THIS PAGE OR THE CRYPTO HUNTERS.)

Round 2

Matt Moneymaker attacks the Sierra Kills story. The leader of the BFRO released a statement on Cryptomundo attacking the entire Sierra Kills story and Justin Smeja and accusing Smeja of lying. He also seemed to imply that Dr. Melba Ketchum was lying in her assessment of the Sierra Kills Bigfoot steak.

BTW, I would bet a whole lot of money that Justin Smeja is lying and did not shoot a bigfoot at all. In my opinion his story is totally ludicrous, if you know the details he initially described.
He claimed he found the pieces of hide after to returning to the area of the “shooting” after a snow storm. He says he didn’t know if the hide was related to what he claimed he shot. To me that sounds like he’s structuring the story so he can remain blameless when the hide is shown to be from a known animal.
On top of that, he mentioned that he’s got a freezer full of dead coyote parts (he hunts those too). I do suspect he cut a piece of hide from one of those dead coyotes and provided that to the people who bought into his shooting story.
Here’s the red flag for that: Some folks I know spent a lot of time questioning the dude in person … One of them says that when he heard Ketchum “confirmed” that his samples came from a sasquatch, he said he thought SHE was a hustler … which seemed strange to the person he said that to.
It doesn’t puzzle me at all. He would have good reason to say that if he knew the hide came from a coyote. And that’s exactly what it looked like. I saw a photo of the hide piece. I was a roughly rectangular piece of fur and skin which looked like it was cut from a larger hide. The piece in question looked like it came from the belly of a coyote. Supposedly Meldrum also said it looked like it could have come from a coyote.
- Matt Moneymaker

These are some interesting comments. Smeja did indeed whip out a piece of the Bigfoot steak when he took a team to the site of the Sierra Kills in Sierra Buttes, California. It was nothing more than a small rectangular strip. One person there said they thought it was from a coyote, and others some others apparently agreed.
Smeja acknowledges that the steak resembles a piece of coyote. In his initial description, he said it was the color of a “pale yote.” Meldrum’s views that it resembles a coyote may be related to the hair structure, which is unusual it is true. It is true that Smeja has four or five coyotes that he shot chopped up in his freezer right now. But that doesn’t mean that the steak is a piece of coyote.
I do not believe that the steak is a piece of coyote. For one thing, when Ketchum first received it, she said it appeared to be a piece of the thigh of a human cadaver.

Matt Moneymaker’s purported drug problems. Sources have disclosed the following to me about this sensitive issue:
It’s long been known, but never publicly disclosed in Bigfoot circles, that Matt Moneymaker has a drug problem. He reportedly completed a stint in a drug rehab facility not long ago. It is not known what habit he was trying to kick. It’s long been rumored that he has or had a cocaine habit. A source said, “A lot of Wally Hersom’s seed money for the BFRO went straight up Matt’s nose.” It’s not known whether he currently has coke problem or not.
However, he is said to be a heavy marijuana user. Sources told me, “He smokes it every day, all day long.” He is also said to be a heavy pill user. The pills he is using are not known, but narcotics are a good possibility, as they are favorites nowadays. Sources also said in reference to Matt’s drug use: “He stays up for 3 days at a time.” In the context of our modern era, this could possibly be using meth, a very popular drug now. It’s not known whether Matt also has a drinking problem.
I asked the source how sure he was of these serious charges, and he said, “Everyone in Matt’s circle of close friends, maybe 20 people or so, knows about this, and they’ve known about it forever. It’s been an open secret in the Bigfoot community for ages.”Sources told me that Matt’s drug use became quite an issue on the set of Finding Bigfoot, where he was showing up on the set stoned. The filming went on anyway, but the producers were not happy.
Matt is definitely straight from my generation. I’m a bit of a drug fan myself, though I hardly use anymore, so I completely understand where Matt is at. Although I used drugs for decades, I was always a casual user. I’ve known thousands of people in the scene – users and dealers. Many of my friends ended up on the boulevard of broken dreams due to drugs. Some of them are already in the grave, and it is was drugs that put them there.
Matt’s use sounds like it goes beyond recreational to the point where it’s affecting his work, health, etc. Here’s hoping he gets the help he needs, from one who has known the drug scene inside and out, up and down and up close and personal for decades.
I understand that Matt has long threatened to sue anyone who writes about any of this stuff. I have a Journalism degree. We had to take a law course called Law of Mass Communications, so I am very well trained in Libel Law, and I know it inside and out. 99% of US libel cases are tossed before they even get to court, and the plaintiff has to pay court costs.
The main stickler in US libel law is that the libeler has to know that what he is saying is untrue. In addition, Matt’s a public figure like the movie stars, etc. that you read about in the tabloids. He has about the same protection from libel as other stars do, and look what people write about them. Bottom line is that public figures have much lowered protection under libel law. Further, the charges must be untrue, and there have been rumors swirling around about Matt forever now.

How does Matt Moneymaker support himself? It’s not known. He’s intelligent, and he has graduated from law school. Good for him, that’s not easy to do. He says he’s a lawyer, but that’s not true. He may not have been able to pass the bar – the details are not known. It’s also not known how he’s been supporting himself all of these years. However, in the past year, he has apparently been receiving a salary for acting on the show Finding Bigfoot. He’s a married family man.

Motivation for Moneymaker’s comments about Ketchum and Smeja. In recent days, Matt has made some serious digs at both Ketchum and Smeja. Matt is another guy in on the Bigfoot Gold Rush, and he has to be the first one to find Bigfoot. He’s insecure and feels threatened by Smeja and Ketchum, so he’s trying to destroy the competition.
This is unnecessary. For all of its faults, the BFRO has done a great service to the community. Its investigators are top notch, and the group trail-blazed cutting edge investigation methods. The sightings database is a glorious achievement akin to the Bigfoot Library of Congress. Many of the articles on the site are quite good.
Matt’s comments on wood-knocking and shelters were ahead of their time and prescient. The BFRO is very careful about investigating footprints, photos and video, and the evidence that they do confirm in general seems to be good. They have rarely fallen for a hoax yet.
It was a visit to the BFRO site this spring that got me back into being interested in Bigfoot and spurred all of these columns, so ultimately you can thank the BFRO for my reports.
Along with the bad often comes the good. So it is with the BFRO, and so it is in life.
[via Robert Lindsay Blog]

TCH - This looks like it could get very nasty and as much as i really don't care for Matt Moneymaker, if any of this is true i sure hope he overcomes it.